Court Upholds Employee's Dismissal For Confederate
Flag Display

The US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals
affirmed the decision of a lower court, determined the
private employer in this case was within its legal rights
to fire Matthew Dixon for violating a company
antiharassment
policy.
In doing so, the court further determined the action
was also within the legal bounds of a South Carolina
statute that prohibits private employers from firing
employees for expressing political opinions or exercising
constitutional rights, according to a New York Times
report.

The appellate court noted that “Dixon’s free speech
claim raises First Amendment issues that are of
monumental importance” and “presents this court with a
difficult question as to where the outer limit of an
individual’s right to political expression might lie,”
the court nonetheless held that Dixon had no legal right
to express to his views at work.

Battle Hymn

>Dixon, a white mechanic at the Coburn Dairy in
Charleston, South Carolina, placed two Confederate flag
stickers on the toolbox he took to work in 2000. The
action, Dixon claims, was an expression of his views in the
public debate then raging on whether to remove the flag
from the state’s capitol building.

>A black co-worker objected to the stickers, saying
they were racially offensive and violated their employer’s
antiharassment policy. Dixon declined to remove the
stickers and refused the dairy’s offer to buy him a new
toolbox if he kept the one with the stickers on it at home.
The dairy then fired him for violating the antiharassment
policy.

Dixon sued, claiming a violation of his First
Amendment rights.
A federal district court judge in Charleston
dismissed the case.